Homesickness
Sun Aug 27 02:00:00 EST 2006
Another day in Queensland. Jet lag continues to go, but the homesickness starts to kick in. What follows are some 2am thoughts that shouldn't be taken too seriously, but the analysis afterwards is useful. Whinging pom mode follows:
I think I may have made a mistake. Why the hell am I in Queensland? I'm homesick. I have no friends here, I don't know how to get food, no-one walks they all drive, it is too hot, there aren't pubs every hundred metres, I'm not on the net, I'm far from the information centres of the world, I don't know if I actually want to do atomic physics anymore. I miss my friends. I miss Alexa. I miss Keble MCR, my home for the last seven years where I could just go in and wait for interesting people to appear. I miss living like a student, I don't want to be a real person.
What was the point of writing the above, given that I've uprooted my life and relocated many times before? Especially since I haven't even started work yet on what looks to be a really interesting project. And particularly since I tend to overcome the not knowing anyone problem very quickly while I am in my "settling into a new environment" mode.
Writing down all of my fears allows me to identify those that are real, and those which are imaginary. Doing so allows me to identify what I consider is wrong with my life and what I consider the correct way things should be - basically the outcome visualization approach from GTD.
Problems and solutions:
- lack of net access
- get on the net at uni, find out about getting broadband at home
- lack of friends
- meet people at work, meet other new employees at the orientation course on Thursday, maybe start aikido again
- uncertainty with staying with atomic physics
- see how it goes for the next few months, it will probably be fine once I'm working on the new experiment and making progress. My lack of enthusiasm at the moment is probably just from working on the same experiment for so long.
- uncertainty of staying in Australia
- see if I re-adjust to the climate, distances and culture.
- lack of food (explanation: in Oxford I lived 2 minutes walk from the
local Sainsburys, with its ready-made salads and ready meals, or 5
minutes walk from 3 or 4 pubs that did decent vegetarian food. My
cooking skills are hence non-existent)
- learn to cook, or see what is available close to the uni campus
[me]
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